"Maeda" is a place name in Kaitō District of western Owari Province, and was the seat of the senior branch of the Maeda clan in the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Maeda Nagatane (1550-1631) entered into the service of Maeda Toshiie, and his descendants became hereditary retainers of the Maeda clan of Kaga Domain. This branch received the kazoku peerage title of danshaku (baron) after the Meiji restoration.
A cadet branch of the Owari Maeda were given the castle of Arako in what is now part of Nakagawa-ku, Nagoya. Maeda Toshimasa (d.1560) entered the service of Oda Nobuhide, who nominally ruled Owari Province from his seat at Kiyosu Castle. His son, Maeda Toshihisa (d.1587) also served the Oda clan, and was ordered to retire in favour of his brother, Maeda Toshiie.
Another notable member of the family was Maeda Toshimasu, commonly known as Maeda Keiji. Though he was biologically the son of Takigawa Kazumasu, he was adopted by Maeda Toshihisa, the older brother of Maeda Toshiie. He was recognized as a renowned warrior. According to legend, he broke the front line of the Mogami clan leading a group of just eight riders during a battle in which he fought for the Uesugi clan.
Sengoku and Edo period
Maeda Toshiie was one of the leading generals under Oda Nobunaga. He began his career as a page, rising through the ranks a member of the akahoro-shū (赤母衣衆), under Nobunaga's personal command and later became an infantry captain (ashigaru taishō 足軽大将). From his youth, he was a close confidant of Nobunaga and a friend of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After defeating the Asakura clan, he fought under Shibata Katsuie in the Hokuriku region in the suppression of the Ikkō-ikki, and participated in the 1570 Battle of Anegawa and the 1577 Battle of Tedorigawa. He was eventually granted the fief of Fuchu in Etchū Province (30,000 koku), and in 1581 was given Noto Province (230,000 koku), to which he added his other territories in Kaga Province to form Kaga Domain.[1] After Nobunaga's death, he pledged fealty to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his territories were expanded to cover all of the three provinces of Noto, Kaga and Etchū, with a kokudaka of well over a million koku. Toshiie divided his fief among his sons. His eldest son Maeda Toshinaga participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and built Kanazawa Castle; he also was recognised as daimyō of Kaga Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate.
The Maeda clan attempted to maintain good relations with the Tokugawa clan through marriage ties, and, although a tozama clan, were permitted to use the "Matsudaira" name as an honorific patronym.
The Maeda clan continued to rule Kaga Domain from their headquarters in Kanazawa from 1583 until the Meiji restoration in 1868. Maeda Toshitsune established two cadet branches of the clan at Toyama and Daishōji. Another cadet branch of the clan was established by Maeda Toshitaka, the fifth son of Maeda Toshiie, at Nanokaichi Domain in Kōzuke Province. All of these cadet branches also continued to be ruled by the Maeda clan until the Meiji restoration. However, the Maeda clan was often beset by O-Ie Sōdō incidents, and many of the clan heads died young, or without heir. The clan did not play a prominent role in the Meiji restoration. After the start of the Meiji period, the former heads of the various branches of the Maeda clan were made peers under the kazoku peerage system.
Iwao, Seiichi. (1978). Biographical dictionary of Japanese history. Berkeley: University of California.
Papinot, Jacques Edmund Joseph. (1906) Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie du japon. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha. Nobiliaire du japon (2003, abridged online text of 1906 book).
^Turnbull, Stephen (2000). The Samurai Sourcebook. London: Cassell & C0. p. 55,228. ISBN1854095234.
